THE POWER OF THE PRESS, EXETER, 1840.

 This was a common imposture in Victorian Devon:  you forged a 'brief' or certificate from a magistrate to the effect that you were a sailor who had survived a shipwreck and were now in need of charity.and you carried this from door to door in country places, waved the piece of paper at the credulous and collected, sometimes, large sums of money.

The Exeter and Plymouth Gazette (18th July, 1840) cautioned that four such 'sailors' were operating in Broadclyst. The newspaper had corresponded with the Ilfracombe magistrate, who was in London at the time, whose name appeared on the brief.  The next week their Ottery correspondent was able, triumphantly, to report:

"The paragraph which appeared in your paper of Saturday last, relative to 'four men calling themselves Sailors and stating that a Vessel bound from St Cuba to this country, and to which they belonged, was struck by lightning on her passage, wrecked and nearly all the crew perished, &c.' has been the means of bringing one of the four delinquents this day (Wednesday) to justice.

"A man calling himself George Jones introduced himself to Mr.Jos. Cock, of this place, gamekeeper to Sir J. Kennaway, Bart.. (who had just noticed the paragraph alluded to,) and solicited alms of him, afterwards producing him a brief or certificate purporting to be drawn up and signed by 'N.V. Lee' of Ilfracombe, one of the Magistrates of this county.  

"Mr. Cock immediately charged the man with being an imposter, and, after a scuffle, took him into custody. Mr, Cock who was desirous to compare the particulars of the certificate with the Newspaper report, was about to do so, when the man exclaimed, with an oath, 'You shall not overhaul my papers' and immediately snatched the certificate from Mr. Cock's hands, and tore it into pieces, the whole of which was immediately collected, and has since been pasted together on a sheet of paper.  The man endeavoured to eat some of the pieces, but Mr. Cock prevented him.

"After a great deal of difficulty he was taken before the Rev. George Smith, the Vicar of Ottery St. Mary, who, after hearing the complaint, on oath, convicted the imposter as a rogue and vagabond, and commited him for 3 months to hard labour.

"The certificate bears the signature of many respectable subscribers who have given to the amount of nearlt £10....

"Great credit is due to Mr. Cock for his spirited exertions in preventing this imposter, who is a very powerful fellow, from collecting alms under such fraudulent pretences."

  

IDLE BOYS, EXETER, 1840.

The Western Times of 2nd June, 1840,  thought  it a good idea to include this in it local news column;  the sidewalk stone-kicking must have been noticable:

"A correspondent writes to ask us, are there no proper authorities to prevent the footways of this city from being  in some streets rendered nearly impassible, in consquence of a game which has been much patronised by idle boys of late, namely kicking about a stone with as much energy as their young muscles will admit of, to the imminent risk of the shins of all sedate passengers.  

"He states that a woman had her leg laid open a few days since in St. Sidwells, by a flint stone sent spinning vigorously along the pavement by a determined kick.

"He states that in other towns which he had visited, having far less pretensions to civilization than the emporium of the west, such practices would not be tolerated."

I suspect that the correspondent is overestimating the dangers of vigorous flint-kicking to sedate passengers;  (isn't it curious that nowadays you are only a passenger when someone is transporting you?) perhaps the woman in St. Sidwells with the leg laid open was his auntie.

The emporium of the west still lives up to its reputation for tolerating the intolerable, although these days the local council seems not to bother with greater pretensions to civilization - too elitist for them I suppose.

At least these idle boys had boots to their feet.

A WRESTLING MATCH, EXETER, 1840.

"The lovers of this manly exercise had a rich treat on Wesnesday last, in a Match beween the worthy hosts of the Victory and Acorn Inns in this city,  The match was for a crown aside, and came off in a field behind the Cavalry Barracks.   

"At setting too (sic) Boniface of the Acorn had the best of it, not being encumbered with so much flesh as his antagonist of the Victory, who exhibited strong signs of piping in the first and second bouts, suffering from the heavy falls he received,  but being decidedly the most scientific man, he gave the man of oak such a crossbussler that he came to the ground flat as a pancake, which the referees decided won the wager."

In the merry  month of May, two well-set Exeter innkeepers wrestled each other to win or lose a crown (five shillings).  They met in a field behind the Cavalry Barracks and no doubt, among others, their regulars turned up to cheer for them and someone would no doubt have made a book. 

Mine host of the Victory , the heavier man, won the wager.

The other was the man of oak, i.e. of the Acorn - very witty!  Was his name really Boniface?   (Saint Boniface, who went to the schools in Exeter, has been revered locally for some thirteen hundred years and is, but only since 2019, officially the patron of Devon in the courts of heaven)  Perhaps it was just that this host had a bony face. 

Piping here means gasping for breath.  It is used thus, I gather, only for boxers and wrestlers.

A crossbussler is a cross-buttock, a throw across the hip.

Encumbered with flesh might prove a useful euphemism for sensitivity readers.

Flat as a pancake has been around since, at least, the sixteenth century. 

Innkeepers nowadays aren't as sporting as once they were.

Source: The Western Times, 23rd May, 1840.

THE WISE WOMAN OF MILL STREET, EXETER, 1850.

 

“Last Tuesday sennight a company of the lower kind of people, working men, their womenfolk and paupers of this city gathered in Fore Street to give ear to a crazy harangue from the so-called wise woman of Mill Street, Jenny Vinnicombe. She addressed a mob of perhaps two or three hundred people. A few respectable citizens were also drawn to listen to her prognostications. What she had to say was as dismal and as unworthy of belief as we have come to expect from this visionary.

“' I see this city,” she squawked, waving her bony fingers towards heaven, 'far distant from now. I see the House of God surrounded by mud.  I see a drunken man shouting out filthy words in Peter's churchyard. He holds a bottle in each hand. He is not alone. There are many of them there,,- ,foul-mouthed women too.  Alas! these monstrous beings now rule the city streets.   I see three of them carousing  beneath the very porch of the Guildhall.'” (at this, a gasp of horror from the crowd) “'others squat in the dust opposite the city market supplicating alms from passers by. It is a city without watchmen or constables. ( A cheer from the less reputable auditors).

"The market is a market no longer. I see only gluttons feeding like there were no morrow. The streets are full of noise and vulgarity. Norney, our treasured pleasure ground  has lost its groves and its charm.  The  green turf  is browned and, the walks are everywhere blocked or locked.  Childish scribblers have daubed the castle walls and the seats, and whatever can be desecrated.  Wherever the eye lights is shabbiness and neglect. (a groan from the fragrant multitude)  I see the gates of the people's Castle Yard made fast against them, the castle of  Rougemont lost to them for ever.  (yet another groan.)   I see ....'

“But we have reported quite enough of the wanderings of this crazed old beldame. She kept up her silly rant until Policemen Guppy and Bray tired of her  nonsense and marched her away to spend time in the back grate where she still awaits the opportunity to harangue His Worshipful the Mayor and the Magistrates."

Well,  this wise woman was clearly no progressive!  

There are still plenty of people today claiming they can see what horrors the distant  future holds.  Let us hope they are all as pathetically wrong in their dark visions as was Jenny Vinniccombe.

Norney of course, is the Northernhay Gardens.

Peter's churchyard is the Cathedral Green.

Source: The Exeter Flying Post, 32^nd March, 1850.